North Korea has nukes and has been working on perfecting them and the ability to send them over very long distances via ICBMs. Currently they can't hit the US, but they are working on it.

Considering the situation, what should be done about NK? There are four main routes to take, none of which end well:

1. Ignore it. Let them have nukes + ICBMs. They won't attack us if we don't attack them.

Pros:- maybe nothing bad happens and we just accept it

Cons:- can lead to a nuclear arms race in the region (this is no joke as the more countries have it, the more unstable the entire world is, it's bad enough a country like Pakistan has them, NK is 100 times worse)- they may feel emboldened to extort money from other nations, maybe launch a few (small conventional) rockets into South Korea cause who the hell will want to attack them once they have nukes+ICBMs that can deliver nukes- can sell nuclear tech to other bad actors like terrorist groups- if the Kim regime feels threatened by inside rebellion Kim might just decide to say fuck it and push the button or extort America into defending their regime (i.e. help me crush this rebellion or we both die)- can embolden Kim to make other ridiculous demands- sucks for NK people- makes America and the west look weak as fuck

2. Totally destroy North Korea

Pros:- bye bye Kim- the rest of the world doesn't have to deal with the bullshit anymore

Cons:- bye bye South Korea+Japan+US troops stationed in Korea- bye bye your stock portfolio as you get a financial crisis, global trading is fucked for a while if these two countries get nuked- sucks for NK people- China possibly retaliating (personally I don't believe so)

3. Only destroy military targets in North Korea and overthrow Kim

Pros: - bye bye Kim- the rest of the world doesn't have to deal with the bullshit anymore- far less civilians die

Cons:- intel is limited, we don't actually know where all of Kim's military shit is- very high risk bye bye Japan+South Korea, a preemptive strike like that would need to destroy every single launch site before Kim has any chance to counter-attack and that's unlikely- still sucks for NK people- some have argued it will be like Iraq, personally I don't believe it, it's not the same culture, if NK falls, SK will just annex it and take care of it, I don't think there will be anything like ISIS equivalent of NK

4. Put pressure on the regime with sanctions and get China to pressure them too

Pros:- no war

Cons:- never worked and can't be trusted with any deal anyway, Kim still lives in luxury and the suffering is passed on to the people- sucks for NK people

Either way it's fucked.

Personally I'd try 5. and I don't know how likely it is to happen but:

5. offer Kim and his associates political asylum in luxury in a location of their choice (within reason) and legal immunity from crimes against humanity if they step down peacefully

It would suck to give that to such an undeserving monster, but no other options seem plausible at this point. Kim wants weapons because he doesn't want to end up like Gaddafi. Maybe if he can be guaranteed that another way, he won't want weapons.

Pros:- worth a try if it can resolve this peacefully- nothing is lost if the offer is rejected- WAY cheaper than any other option if successful

Cons:- very unlikely to be accepted but it seems the best bet to stop this bullshit without a nuclear exchange

How do we tell a nation we threaten all the time and sanction to murderous levels not to find itself a comparably big stick?

Do we wander round destroying utterly nations who develop nuclear weapons because only we are allowed them?

Why are we worried about rogue nations getting hold of tiny quantities of nukes when nations like the US have enough to level every capital city in the world and are currently run by numpties as unhinged as North Korea?

We've lost the moral high-ground. All that's left is bigger stickery.

My only hope is that nations develop rocket defenses that can make the notion of lobbing nukes at each other obsolete.

How do we tell a nation we threaten all the time and sanction to murderous levels not to find itself a comparably big stick?

I don't know, how do we tell a convicted violent felon he's not allowed to have weapons despite a 2nd amendment? Very simple, because he's proven to be too irresponsible to own a weapon and he lost that right. Rights don't come without responsibilities. You abuse them, you lose them. Either temporarily or permanently.

We don't sanction them without good reason. NK has expansionist ambitions towards SK and does a lot of criminal things around the world, not just to their own people. They've been behind several cyber attacks intended to extort money, they've been known to kidnap foreign Japanese citizens for social experiments and such. They're an exporter of slave labor so for all those progressives who bash America for it's slave past several lifetimes ago, NK is doing it TODAY.

North Korea is not just another nation, not like the US, arguably not like any other besides maybe the rogue Islamic State, but that's not an official country. The next most unfree countries in the world look like a freedom paradise compared to those two dumps, NK doesn't have even the slightest checks and balances (even by communist standards it is extremely brutal), it's run by a psychopath family who does whatever it wants without the slightest regard for its neighbor South Korea, Japan or NK people. The mafia would probably have a more legitimate claim to power in NK. At least you could argue they would run it more humanely and not antagonize so many nations.

Sparhafoc wrote:Do we wander round destroying utterly nations who develop nuclear weapons because only we are allowed them?

Do you remember the Cuban missile crisis or the many other times a nuclear war was almost started? And that's just with 7 countries having nukes.

Imagine 200 countries having nukes, many of them not even similar in checks and balances that the US has and run by people with no restraints. The probability of a disaster rises dramatically.

You can risk it if you want, but that's like giving toddlers guns. A regime as unhinged as NK cannot be allowed to have nukes + ICBMs.

Why are we worried about rogue nations getting hold of tiny quantities of nukes

"Rogue" your answer lies within the question itself.

I mean fuck it, might as well allow random civilians to have nukes, what could go wrong? Do you need to ask? How about the fact that they're far more likely to use them because there's no checks and balances and the people don't even have a say in it?

But also consider this: how about the fact that NK can sell nukes to ISIS and other bad actors once they perfect the technology enough? Even if they don't, they can still extort other nations based on that: "pay up and nothing happens to the nukes."

when nations like the US have enough to level every capital city in the world and are currently run by numpties as unhinged as North Korea?

If even one of those tiny nukes goes off in an American city it will be a crisis the likes of which you've never seen before. Yes, America could counter-attack if NK got ICBMs and launched them at the US, America would win. Would it be a flawless victory? Not even close.

No, that's just slander. Where are the US forced labor camps? Where are the tourists sentenced to 15 years in prison for stealing a Trump poster? For that matter, why isn't Obama still president? You think someone as unhinged as Kim Jong Un would just peacefully transfer power after 8 years because some law says so? Nobody in the US government is as unhinged as the North Korean regime. And even if a psycho slips through, there's checks and balances to limit the damage he can do.

Sparhafoc wrote:We've lost the moral high-ground. All that's left is bigger stickery.

Not when it comes to NK. Literally anyone besides ISIS is on a higher moral ground.

Sparhafoc wrote:My only hope is that nations develop rocket defenses that can make the notion of lobbing nukes at each other obsolete.

And then we're right back to conventional wars, so maybe that won't really solve it.

Like I said, there's no good solution. I'm not really in favor of starting a war either. I don't know what to do. The US should look into the option of just making Kim leave power and offering the right guarantees so he doesn't think he'll end up like Gaddafi.

Tree wrote:I don't know, how do we tell a convicted violent felon he's not allowed to have weapons despite a 2nd amendment? Very simple, because he's proven to be too irresponsible to own a weapon and he lost that right. Rights don't come without responsibilities. You abuse them, you lose them. Either temporarily or permanently.

We don't sanction them without good reason. NK has expansionist ambitions towards SK and does a lot of criminal things around the world, not just to their own people. They've been behind several cyber attacks intended to extort money, they've been known to kidnap foreign Japanese citizens for social experiments and such.

You seem to present a series of arguments why the United States shouldn't be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

I don't know, how do we tell a convicted violent felon he's not allowed to have weapons despite a 2nd amendment? Very simple, because he's proven to be too irresponsible to own a weapon and he lost that right. Rights don't come without responsibilities. You abuse them, you lose them. Either temporarily or permanently.

There's a marked difference here between the laws of a nation, and the imperatives formulated between nations.

Further, if we're going to talk about a nation abusing nukes; there's only one nation that's used nuclear weapons in a war, and they used them against civilian targets. Do they then lose them?

How does that work? So you tell a nation with nukes that they're not allowed to have them anymore? Surely, their nukes are a large stand-in for a middle finger?

No, that's just slander. Where are the US forced labor camps? Where are the tourists sentenced to 15 years in prison for stealing a Trump poster? For that matter, why isn't Obama still president? You think someone as unhinged as Kim Jong Un would just peacefully transfer power after 8 years because some law says so? Nobody in the US government is as unhinged as the North Korean regime. And even if a psycho slips through, there's checks and balances to limit the damage he can do.

Slander?

Oh dear, of course it's not slander, for the love of logic.

You can't slander a nation, and even if you could, it might help if you were responding to what I wrote rather than whatever it is you're responding to.

Let's re-cite it to show what I mean - I wrote:

Why are we worried about rogue nations getting hold of tiny quantities of nukes when nations like the US have enough to level every capital city in the world and are currently run by numpties as unhinged as North Korea?

Perhaps you are not aware of the difference between the horror of a single nuclear weapon going off in a population centre, and thousands of nuclear weapons going off.

While the former is an incontrovertible horror as attested by the victims of American nuclear attacks in Japan, it's nowhere near comparable to the long term planetary devastation that multiple nukes going off would cause.

Only one nation has shown willing to use nuclear weapons, and they used them against cities.

The real and present danger is not the loon in a backwards nation like N Korea possibly maybe getting a nuke, but the loon in the dramatically advanced nation actually brimming with nukes. The same nation whose dangerous loon has asked for an INCREASE in nuclear capacity, because being able to nuke every capital city in the world is, apparently, not enough of a surrogate penis.

Why do humans always see the danger in the foreigner, but find it so facile to explain away the dangers at home?

he_who_is_nobody wrote:I just find it funny that the boogyman of North Korea is back when the Republicans are in the White House. Remember when we used to laugh at them as the joke they truly are?

Maybe that was a mistake because we used to laugh at them before they were such a short time away from developing ICBMs capable of delivering nukes anywhere in the world. This is a complete game changer.

Right now if they pull any funny business on South Korea, the US can end them and the best they could do is maybe attack Guam. They have no chance of reaching US mainland, not with nukes, not with anything.

ICBMs can change that.

Sparhafoc wrote:

Tree wrote:That is not going to happen so long as several other nations have nukes.

Also there's no moral comparison between US and NK.

Right. Only one nation has dropped nuclear weapons, and that nation also happens to have targeted civilians.

For all its human rights abuses against its own people - NK is nowhere near morally comparable to that.

You're clearly very uneducated about the daily horrors of North Korea. You should read the human rights reports on it, it is unlike any other nation. Saudi Arabia will look like a freedom paradise by comparison. There is no end to the depravity of North Korea, whatever you can think of, they probably did 10 times worse.

Even your nuke analogy is false. The nukes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during a just defensive war and there was no other choice to end the conflict sooner. It was a strategic decision during war time. A war that the Japanese and Nazis started. Actually far more civilians died from Allied conventional bombings but you're not talking about that. That wouldn't exactly fit your fuck America narrative would it cause it would involve European nations too + Russia and they're so much more humane right?

Kim Jong Un butchers his own people during peace time. It's literally an open air prison, the largest of its kind.

Even the nukes themselves killed far less people than Kim's regime has so you're wrong on that too. And that was war time. What's Kim's excuse?

Rest assured too, without the US, SK would be part of NK as well. You should give credit to the US for saving SK from becoming like NK. People have so much better lives there.

it might help if you were responding to what I wrote rather than whatever it is you're responding to.

It might help to pay attention to my posts because the answer to the question:

"Why are we worried about rogue nations getting hold of tiny quantities of nukes when nations like the US have enough to level every capital city in the world and are currently run by numpties as unhinged as North Korea?"

can be found there. Twice in fact. So let's recap:

1. rogue nations like NK don't have the checks and balances that would prevent say a nation like the US from launching nukes2. rogue nations can sell those nukes to other rogue nations or non-state bad actors like AQ or ISIS3. the risk of losing even one settlement on US soil is not worth letting rogue nations have nukes (and by the way NK has around 38 or so nukes, enough to theoretically ravage the US if they had the ICBMs to deliver them), it does not matter if it's a "tiny quantity of nukes" as long as even one nuke can cause significant problems immediately and for decades to come

Cancer is a "tiny quantity of bad cells" (1 to be exact, it starts from 1 bad cell), the fact that something is tiny doesn't make it harmless or risk free.

4. by the way, anyone who thinks only the nuked cities will suffer damage is fooling himself, in the event that even one of these devices goes off in an American city, there will be widespread panic leading to death and injury as people flee other major cities not knowing if they're next, market crashes leading to lower standards of life, unemployment, diminished retirement savings as investors retreat from the stock market, most likely martial law will be instituted and giving the government an excuse to crack down on civil liberties "just in case", I repeat, none of this is worth the risk of letting a rogue nation, least of all NK, have nukes and the ability to deliver them via ICBMs, the chaos alone would probably cause more deaths in the long run than the nuke itself5. rogue nations are not necessarily rational actors which means the possibility of being annihilated should they launch a nuke might NOT deter them from launching the nuke6. rogue nations can use their nuclear power status to extort other nations even if they never fire them and create regional instability that leads to a nuclear arms race7. rogue nations with nukes can physically bully other nations, in NK's case they can fire small conventional rockets into SK knowing everyone is too afraid to retaliate anyway8. rogue nations by definition are very unstable, which means that even if they never use the nukes and never sell those nukes, it doesn't mean those nukes won't end up in the hands of people who are even less trustworthy than them9. the probably of nuclear conflict rises the more nations have nukes, rogue or not, it's not possible to have a nuclear free world so our best bet is to contain it to countries that have it already10. in NK's case, if the Kim regime is threatened there (even if America is NOT involved, repeat NOT involved) there is a very real possibility they will still nuke the US or at least threaten to in other to extort the US into ensuring nobody overthrows Kim, I don't think you want the US or NATO to be put in a position where they have to kill rebelling NK citizens so Kim doesn't nuke us

And if that scenario seems far fetched, it's not. Kim Jong Un cares about only one thing: Kim Jong Un, morality is not in his vocabulary and he has ALWAYS, without exception, gone out of his way to ensure his regime survives. There is no crowd of people too large that he's not prepared to sacrifice.

So that's another reason Kim's nuclear program must not be allowed to go any further. Maybe if the last three presidents had done something about it, we wouldn't be in this predicament.

Perhaps you are not aware of the difference between the horror of a single nuclear weapon going off in a population centre, and thousands of nuclear weapons going off. While the former is an incontrovertible horror as attested by the victims of American nuclear attacks in Japan, it's nowhere near comparable to the long term planetary devastation that multiple nukes going off would cause.

This is unfounded. The US is not going to fire them off if it is not provoked and there are plenty of checks and balances to prevent that. Check and balances that NK completely lacks. There are no elections, no separation of power and no limitation on the state's power.

Only one nation has shown willing to use nuclear weapons, and they used them against cities.

Yeah? And Nazi-aligned imperial Japan butchered its way across China killing millions without the need for nukes or even remotely sophisticated weapons.

That is not true at all and it's just more "fuck American" type of propaganda, every nation that has nukes has shown its willingness to use it, at least if the circumstances call for it. Haven't you even heard of mutually assured destruction?

There are consequences for starting a war. Japan was the aggressor and it was very stubborn to surrender and only a show of overwhelming force would have done the job. More would have died without the use of those nukes.

Seriously, don't be an apologist for Nazi/Axis-aligned Japan. They deserved to lose and now they learned their lesson and they're one of the most advanced nations in the world. It's good that America had to come along and civilize them.

The real and present danger is not the loon in a backwards nation like N Korea possibly maybe getting a nuke,

HE ALREADY HAS NUKES!!!!!! HE HAS TESTED NUKES IN UNINHABITED AREAS! It's not maybe or possibly. They're there and that's not even the end of it, the larger concern is that if he has nukes AND has ICBM technology (ICBM - intercontinental ballistic missile), he can deliver nukes virtually anywhere on Earth, not just in the area close to NK. Right now, he cannot strike any part of America or most of its allies besides Japan and South Korea.

However, him getting ICBMs is not a maybe or possibly either. It's a certainty and all it takes is time because his scientists are already researching ICBMs and how to attach nukes on them. They have also tested ICBMs. In a few years or sooner they may have the tech to deliver nukes anywhere successfully - that is if they are not stopped... somehow... and no I have no idea how either, I'm still exploring options but none of them look good.

but the loon in the dramatically advanced nation actually brimming with nukes.

Baseless assertion. The US has been involved in many conflicts since WWII, and then it was arguably justifiable as a calculated strategy in a just defensive war against a Nazi-aligned nation, but hasn't used one since despite many opportunities to. You think Kim with the same power would have shown equal restraint?

The same nation whose dangerous loon has asked for an INCREASE in nuclear capacity, because being able to nuke every capital city in the world is, apparently, not enough of a surrogate penis.

Yeah you know why? Cause shit doesn't last forever. Do you really think the launch mechanisms all work perfectly fine after decades of never being used (luckily)? Just like your car or plumbing or whatever, nukes also have a shelf life. They need replacing one day.

And nuclear deterrent doesn't work if you can't match other nations' stockpile, like say Russia. But I don't see you calling for THEM to reduce their stockpile, I wonder why? It is because you've fallen for "fuck America" propaganda, much of it Russian in origin by the way? Yet I'm supposed to believe Trump is the Russian puppet, sure...

Why do humans always see the danger in the foreigner, but find it so facile to explain away the dangers at home?

Oh God this is so stupid, it's not about hating the foreigner else we would also hate South Koreans. They're the same ethnic group. We have no problem with SK, we even give them 30k troops to defend themselves from that butcher up north.

It's not anti-Korean and only a moron would fall for that race baiting shit. I'm done with you. Please have something worthwhile to say next time.

Sparhafoc wrote:Right. Only one nation has dropped nuclear weapons, and that nation also happens to have targeted civilians.

For all its human rights abuses against its own people - NK is nowhere near morally comparable to that.

You're clearly very uneducated about the daily horrors of North Korea. You should read the human rights reports on it, it is unlike any other nation. Saudi Arabia will look like a freedom paradise by comparison. There is no end to the depravity of North Korea, whatever you can think of, they probably did 10 times worse.

Fantastic. So now you respond to a post where I point out the human rights abuses of N Korea by telling me that I don't know about human rights abuses in N Korea.

You're not very good at this whole dialogue thing, are you?

Let me give you some advice. You've got an opinion, and you want to forward that opinion. You don't make your opinion stronger by pretending its a fact.

Tree wrote:Even your nuke analogy is false.

Translation: you disagree

Tree wrote: The nukes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during a just defensive war and there was no other choice to end the conflict sooner.

No other choice but to drop atomic bombs onto population centres.

Well, there goes your moral high ground.

As I already said - humans are very good at spotting the flaws in those funny foreigners, but work extra hard overtime to explain away their own failings.

Now, you're in a position of trying to tell me that you're right and I am morally uneducated, and simultaneously apologizing for one of the greatest atrocities ever committed by humans against other humans.

Good job. Perhaps you won't understand why, but I'm not really interested in dialogue with people who don't know how to dialogue.

he_who_is_nobody wrote:I just find it funny that the boogyman of North Korea is back when the Republicans are in the White House. Remember when we used to laugh at them as the joke they truly are?

Maybe that was a mistake because we used to laugh at them before they were such a short time away from developing ICBMs capable of delivering nukes anywhere in the world. This is a complete game changer.

W. Bush and his administration said much the same thing about Iraq and WMDs. I thought we learned our lesson about trying to be the world police after that. Besides, you are acting as if ICBMs are not literally rocket science. Again, just another Republican boogyman, back to haunt us.

Tree wrote:Right now if they pull any funny business on South Korea, the US can end them and the best they could do is maybe attack Guam. They have no chance of reaching US mainland, not with nukes, not with anything.

Why would North Korea do that and when are we going to stop meddling in foreign affairs anyways? Beyond that, I thought the Lame Donald Duck campaigned on being an isolationist? How is provoking the Little Rocket Man an isolationist tactic?

1. the slightest political dissent, including not crying enough at the funeral of the dictator, is punished + 3 generations of that person2. the punishment is forced labor in very brutal conditions where guards constantly torture you3. there's no property right and no economic freedom which has lead to a shortage of goods including food with millions dying over time4. every aspect of personal life is tightly regulated, including what hairstyles you can have, your career, what things you're allowed to have on the wall5. no Internet, many western or South Korean things censored with severe punishments for possession of such media6. no fair trials7. exporter of slavery where they send workers outside to places like Russia or China but keep all the money they earn8. acts of aggression towards Japan and South Korea through kidnapping of their citizens including by illegally entering Japanese or SK territory9. there isn't even freedom of movement, do you understand what this means? YOU are confined to a very specific location while in NK... as a NK citizen... Do you understand the implications of that? It makes even South African style apartheid look like a fucking joke

To say the US is basically the same shows a total lack of judgment.

You can even take any country in the bottom 10 freedom index including other communist countries from DECADES ago and it would still not be the total pile of garbage that NK is, this degenerate shitstain on the face of the planet of a regime that should have never been allowed to get this far in the first place.

Translation: you disagree

Translation: I'm right.

No other choice but to drop atomic bombs onto population centres.

Well, there goes your moral high ground.

As I already said - humans are very good at spotting the flaws in those funny foreigners, but work extra hard overtime to explain away their own failings.

Yeah, because literally no other countries besides ISIS (if you want to consider it as such) fail as much as NK.

And to put the nuke thing to rest...

1. it happened over 70 years ago2. it happened during a war where Japan was part of the aggression, it wasn't during peace time3. the alternative would have been a long drawn out invasion with far more Japanese civilian death + extra American and other Allied troop deaths that didn't need to happen, the Japanese would not have surrendered if there was any hope left of winning, the nukes (which by the way were much less potent than today's nukes) removed all of that hope

As the commander in chief (thankfully you were not) how would you justify to the American people, gee, he could have stopped them in their tracks, but instead we sent more of our young men to die and oh btw, more Japanese died too, but we are so much more humane

4. plenty of more civilians died from conventional Allied bombings, are you going to defend Nazi Germany now too and say nobody is better than anyone?

he_who_is_nobody wrote:I thought we learned our lesson about trying to be the world police after that. Besides, you are acting as if ICBMs are not literally rocket science. Again, just another Republican boogyman, back to haunt us.

Being "world police" has its ups and downs. It's not 100% bad, intervention has worked fine for say keeping Nazi Germany or Japan in line, has worked fine in keeping North Korea from taking over South Korea and it worked kinda fine (minus the bit about empowering Islamic nutjobs) to put pressure on the Soviet Union to cease being communist and stop exporting communism to other nations. And you can argue that's not the US' business but then you have to explain why it was the Soviet Union's business to go around spreading communism, potentially to other nations that the US deals with too, thereby harming legitimate business interests. It's not realistic to expect the US to just sit down and take it just because it's not happening on US soil.

You can't really be a full isolationist because it comes to bite you later. American retreat from being a world power only creates a vacuum to be filled by others like Russia or China. And those new powers can then block your trade routes, fuck with your allies and impose their terms. Even tiny rogue states can still fuck with some of your allies or block access to resources you would normally have access to through trade.

By the way what do you mean by world police? Do you just oppose military interventions or any kind of American influence, even if it's just strong leverage? Like say sanctions to stop a nation from getting nukes or doing X, Y, Z?

The situation with NK is not comparable to Iraq at all. Not even a little. Kim Jong Un doesn't even deny having WMDs at all or his intent to get ICBMs and we know he's tested both technologies, even flying 2 rockets over Japan (did they also have bad intel and just imagined those rockets flying over their country?) and detonating nukes in uninhabited areas. They are even planning to test another nuke over the Pacific which would be a serious disaster, there's no telling where those winds will carry the fallout and there's planes and ships probably on those routes too.

Why would North Korea do that

NK has repeatedly stated its intention to conquer SK and reunify Korea, under a dictatorship of course run by the Kim family.

NK has attempted in the past to conquer SK, it was only stopped because the US helped SK and left American troops there as insurance.

and when are we going to stop meddling in foreign affairs anyways?

Maybe once the rest of the world is a more stable place which would require proper elections with proper checks and balances at the very least and a respect for their neighbors.

You can't really have rogue states running amok and expecting that to not harm your own interests or allies. And SK is an American ally.

It makes perfect sense to me to defend SK from NK aggression.

Here's another reason why NK is not like Iraq - not the same culture. NK and SK have the same cultures, at least before all the commie/Juche mix of bullshit. If SK can have democracy so can NK. If Kim falls, there won't be any "Radical State of North Korea" or such, South Korea will simply annex it and integrate North Koreans into a wider Korea.

And yes Trump campaigned as a little more isolationist, but not fully. He's no Ron Paul and never claimed to be.

Btw, would stopping to meddle in foreign affairs include taking back all the money from the Marshall Plan? You know to help Europe get back on its feet after that devastating WW2.

he_who_is_nobody wrote:I thought we learned our lesson about trying to be the world police after that. Besides, you are acting as if ICBMs are not literally rocket science. Again, just another Republican boogyman, back to haunt us.

Being "world police" has its ups and downs. It's not 100% bad, intervention has worked fine for say keeping Nazi Germany or Japan in line...

Declaring war after being attacked is not world policing, that is simply warfare. Equivocating the two will get you nowhere. Since I was talking about the U.S. learning its lesson about being the world's police while talking about the Iraq War, it seems obvious that I am talking about taking military action against another state preemptively.

Tree wrote:... has worked fine in keeping North Korea from taking over South Korea...

Why is/was that something we should have wasted U.S. money or lives over?

Tree wrote:... and it worked kinda fine (minus the bit about empowering Islamic nutjobs) to put pressure on the Soviet Union to cease being communist and stop exporting communism to other nations.

Besides the thing that is causing global problems now, it all worked out. Right... Besides, the failure of communism is what stopped the Soviet Union. Of course a system that cannot work will always end in failure.

Tree wrote:And you can argue that's not the US' business but then you have to explain why it was the Soviet Union's business to go around spreading communism, potentially to other nations that the US deals with too, thereby harming legitimate business interests.

Why would I have to explain that? Again, you are a fan of the tu quoque.

Tree wrote:It's not realistic to expect the US to just sit down and take it just because it's not happening on US soil.

Seeing as how the Soviet Union were never on U.S. soil, as you say, what exactly were we taking?

Tree wrote:You can't really be a full isolationist because it comes to bite you later.

Yet, the Lame Donald Duck campaigned on being isolationist to some extent, yet keeps trying to provoke the Little Rocket Man. Those to things are in conflict.

Tree wrote:American retreat from being a world power only creates a vacuum to be filled by others like Russia or China.

Equivocating world policing with being a world power will also get you nowhere.

Tree wrote:And those new powers can then block your trade routes, fuck with your allies and impose their terms.

Why would world powers want to do this?

Tree wrote:Even tiny rogue states can still fuck with some of your allies or block access to resources you would normally have access to through trade.

Than the allies can handle the tiny rogue states. Our allies can ask for our help if they need it after the tiny rogue states initiates the conflict.

Tree wrote:By the way what do you mean by world police? Do you just oppose military interventions or any kind of American influence, even if it's just strong leverage? Like say sanctions to stop a nation from getting nukes or doing X, Y, Z?

Answered above. You could have asked this first before you started assuming what I meant.

Tree wrote:The situation with NK is not comparable to Iraq at all. Not even a little. Kim Jong Un doesn't even deny having WMDs at all or his intent to get ICBMs and we know he's tested both technologies, even flying 2 rockets over Japan (did they also have bad intel and just imagined those rockets flying over their country?) and detonating nukes in uninhabited areas.

The similarities are what I emphasised in your above statement. Is the intent of one man enough for the U.S. to act? North Korea does not have ICBMs, just like Iraq did not have WMDs. Beyond that, as I said earlier, this seems like Japan et al. problem to handle. Why should the U.S. waste any time, money, or lives over the intent of one man?

Tree wrote:They are even planning to test another nuke over the Pacific which would be a serious disaster, there's no telling where those winds will carry the fallout and there's planes and ships probably on those routes too.

Just like they are planning on getting ICBMs? Again, just another Republican boogyman.

Tree wrote:

Why would North Korea do that

NK has repeatedly stated its intention to conquer SK and reunify Korea, under a dictatorship of course run by the Kim family.

I did ask a stupid question. The real question should have been, how could North Korea do that? So, Kim plans on getting ICBMs and wants to conquer South Korea. Thus, based on this man's plans and wants we are supposed to step in? At best, this seems like a war between two nations that has nothing to do with the U.S. in the first place.

Tree wrote:NK has attempted in the past to conquer SK, it was only stopped because the US helped SK and left American troops there as insurance.

Me too, and not a moment before the aggression from North Korea starts and South Korea asks us to honor our alliances.

Tree wrote:Here's another reason why NK is not like Iraq - not the same culture. NK and SK have the same cultures, at least before all the commie/Juche mix of bullshit. If SK can have democracy so can NK. If Kim falls, there won't be any "Radical State of North Korea" or such, South Korea will simply annex it and integrate North Koreans into a wider Korea.

You should check and see where that crystal ball you are using was manufactured at. Again, that sounds just like what the W. Bush administration predicted about Iraq. They also did not think that there would be a radical state in Iraq. Hidesight is always 20/20 though.

Tree wrote:And yes Trump campaigned as a little more isolationist, but not fully. He's no Ron Paul and never claimed to be.

To ask this again, and I hope it does not go ignored this time; How is provoking the Little Rocket Man [a little] isolationist tactic?

Tree wrote:Btw, would stopping to meddle in foreign affairs include taking back all the money from the Marshall Plan? You know to help Europe get back on its feet after that devastating WW2.

Equivocating war with preemptive military action will get you nowhere.

1. it happened over 70 years ago2. it happened during a war where Japan was part of the aggression, it wasn't during peace time3. the alternative would have been a long drawn out invasion with far more Japanese civilian death + extra American and other Allied troop deaths that didn't need to happen, the Japanese would not have surrendered if there was any hope left of winning, the nukes (which by the way were much less potent than today's nukes) removed all of that hope

4. Today's Monday.5. I like blue.6. My crystal ball says that, in the fantasy future in which a nuke wasn't dropped, everything would have been super poopy.7. Look over there!

A chap unable to tell what's morally problematic about dropping nuclear bombs on civilian sites simultaneously believes he's in a position to instruct others about how those funny foreigners are really, really super bad, like badderer than us good guys, and that's fer shur.